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At a time when bicycling and walking represents 12 percent of all trips, dozens of cities are added bikesharing and thousands of schools are implementing Safe Routes to School programs, some in Congress want to take away the small amount of funding Congress invests in bicycling and walking.

Congressional supporters have introduced two new pieces of legislation to advance funding and safety for bicycling and walking. The Safe Routes to School National Partnership is pleased to support both bills.

That’s the question a young Black boy asked me one afternoon when I accidentally bumped into him and his grandmother on West Florissant Avenue, in Ferguson, after Michael Brown’s death. He was pointing at two officers watching peaceful protestors. I said, “No, little man, you’ll be ok,” but as I walked away, I wondered if he would be ok, if our country would be ok.

If you have been paying attention to how Congress has handled transportation over the past several years, you’d be justified in thinking that this May’s expiration of the MAP-21 transportation law will get pushed back by months and that you don’t need to pay attention to transportation this spring.

This month saw the release of the highly anticipated film "Selma." Structured around three protest marches in 1965, the film follows Martin Luther King Jr. and many other civil rights leaders as they risked their lives in three attempts to walk the 54-mile highway from Selma to Alabama state capital Montgomery in defiance of segregation and oppression.

The results of the November 4th elections were exactly what pollsters and political prognosticators had been indicating since early summer: a number of Republican pickups in the House, and enough wins in the Senate to take control for the first time since 2008. You can read more about the changes coming to Congress and what that might mean for walking and biking programs in our latest federal policy blog.

Most people think of New Jersey as an urban place -- after all, it has the highest population density in the country. There are many dense urban cities and suburban communities, but there are also large rural areas with small towns and open spaces. Contrary to what you might initially think, there are lessons to be learned in New Jersey about Safe Routes to School in rural settings.

This week, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership published a new policy report with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, entitled Safe Routes to School: How States are Adapting to a New Legislative Framework. Additionally, we updated our Snapshot of State Implementation of the Transportation Alternatives Program. While both provide a still incomplete picture of how Safe Routes to School is faring under the now two-year-old Transportation Alternatives Program, the report in particular gives some reason for optimism. Read more about both on this month's federal policy blog.

Walk and Roll to School Day was on October 8, and I participated in an amazing event with Mayor Ed Lee and members of San Francisco’s Safe Routes to School partnership. Nearly 90 schools and 14,000 children across San Francisco participated in the record-breaking event. More than 85 percent of San Francisco Unified School District elementary schools participated, growing the event by ten percent this year.

Just in time for International Walk to School Day, a new study has been published in the Journal of the American Planning Association that confirms what those of us in the field have long known: Safe Routes to School programs are effective at increasing rates of walking and bicycling to and from school.

When I came to the National Partnership more than a year and a half ago, I was encouraged by our founder Deb Hubsmith to do two things. First, find every way to raise the drum beat of equity in my work, and second, read profusely to gain best practices and tactics to push progress forward.

For years, public health and community transportation planning worked together like kids at an sixth grade dance: boys on one side, girls on the other. They see each other, but there’s not much, if any, mingling.

The largest jurisdiction in the Greater Washington, DC region has just completed its first health impact assessment (HIA), assessing the potential health impacts of a proposed transit center along a state highway corridor.

Advocates for bicycle and pedestrian safety are celebrating a significant victory this week, with the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Secretary Anthony Foxx announcing a number of new safety initiatives to be undertaken at the USDOT. The announcement, made by Secretary Foxx at this week's Pro Walk, Pro Bike, Pro Place conference, couldn’t be better timed, with injuries and deaths for bicyclists and pedestrians on the rise across the nation.